1 day Ago By Thomas Heaton
The Center for Food Safety says that Cloverleaf Dairy on the Big Island has been knowingly polluting the ocean with animal and milk waste for years. Hawaii’s last remaining dairy is facing potential legal action from a national environmental advocacy organization that is accusing the the 350-cow Cloverleaf Dairy of violating federal law. In a 12-page letter of intent to sue delivered last month, the California-based Center for Food Safety lists numerous allegations against the Big Island dairy, saying that the operation has been polluting nearshore waters with animal waste and could be causing a public health threat.
Federal law requires a 60-day notice of intent to sue and the center says in the letter it will file the case in Hawaii federal court in October. “There are serious violations of federal law which are going on that put the ocean at risk and it’s our intent to make sure that they stop,” Charles Tebbutt, a Seattle attorney with the center, said. But dairy owner Bahman Sadeghi says the center’s list of complaints is riddled with inaccuracies, speculation and some “absolutely false” accusations.
Sadeghi plans to put up a fight. The letter names Sadeghi, Cloverleaf Dairy and Meadow Gold, which he also owns, as defendants. The center alleges that Sadeghi’s operations have breached the Clean Water Act and Resource Protection and Recovery Act by discharging animal waste into the streams, groundwater and the Pacific Ocean.
It also says that Sadeghi has been unlawfully dumping milk from Meadow Gold’s Hilo facility – more than 80 miles away – on the Hawi dairy’s land. The letter includes a series of aerial photographs taken at the dairy that show spilled milk, the dairy’s manure lagoons and dead cattle. If the Center for Food Safety prevails, Cloverleaf Dairy stands to pay almost $67,000 per violation, per day, along with attorney’s fees and costs, according to the letter.
Unsafe Handling Of Toxic Waste The letter lays out in detail what the center considers to be improper waste management practices at the dairy, some dating back to 2019. Dumping dead animals, waste and milk into the environment has caused substantial environmental damage, the center says, including contaminating soils and groundwater. The center says the dairy’s waste-storage lagoons are leaching into the ground, leaking and sometimes overflowing — especially during rains — and into a stormwater drain next to Upolu Airport, north of the dairy.
The untreated waste flows through the stormwater drain and into the Pacific Ocean, the letter says. The center wants Cloverleaf to comply with federal environmental law and to obtain permits to continue operating. It also wants the the court to order Sadeghi, Cloverleaf and Meadow Gold to refrain from open dumping, line its lagoons and pay legal costs.
Sadhegi, who has spent almost 40 years dairy farming in Hawaii, says he wants to be a “good steward of the land” and that he has taken steps to prevent environmental harm from the operation. For instance, Sadeghi said he has lined one of his two lagoons and will spend the next three to four months lining the other. Still, it seems “impossible” that effluent from his lagoons could drain more than 2,000 feet toward Ulupolu Airport and then into the ocean, he said.
“I challenge anyone to pour 600,000 gallons of anything on the land to see if it would make it to the ocean,” he said. Cows dying on the land is an unfortunate reality of working with livestock. The farm sent between 80 and 90 animals to slaughter last year.
“Cows dying on the farm is not a normal thing we want to see happen,” he said. Up to 15 died on the farm, he said, and they are not always buried immediately. Those animals might have been injured, developed a disease or died while giving birth.
As for dumping milk , “we see it as a nutrient that will improve the land,” Sadeghi said. Sadeghi purchased Meadow Gold in 2020, when the dairy product manufacturer was facing closure after more than a century of operations in Hawaii. Two years later, Sadeghi acquired North Kohala’s 100-year-old Cloverleaf Dairy operation in a bid to integrate locally produced milk into Meadow Gold’s dairy products – ingredients were previously exclusively shipped in from the mainland.
When he acquired the farm it was producing 500 gallons per day and on its worst day, it produced 200 gallons of milk. Now the herd is producing upward of 2,000 gallons daily, on about 800 acres of land, which Sadeghi plans to further increase through better cow genetics and nutrition. He estimates Hawaii consumes about 300,000 gallons a week.
Hawaii’s current dairy industry is tiny compared to what it once was. The state was self-sufficient in milk until 1982. Dairy operations could once be found across Oahu — from Hawaii Kai to Kapahulu and Waianae.
But in 2022, Hawaii had 633 dairy cows spread across 22 farms, according to the USDA. And more than half belong to Cloverleaf Dairy. Legal Designation Is Key Central to the case is whether or not Cloverleaf is considered a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, a designation that means livestock operations need to abide by certain environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, and must obtain permits to discharge waste into national waters.
The Center for Food Safety says that Cloverleaf is a CAFO and that it has not obtained the permits required to operate as it has been. But the state appears unsure whether Cloverleaf should be designated as a CAFO. It’s an important designation.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a CAFO as a livestock operation in which animals spend more than 45 days in an area that does not produce vegetation.
Hawaii’s Department of Health, which regulates CAFOs, deems a dairy operation with more than 700 cows as large while a medium CAFO has between 200 and 699 cows. Sadeghi does not consider his 350-cow dairy as a CAFO because they spend most of their time on 600 acres of grassy pastures. He said he has contacted DOH and was unable to get a clear answer over his designation and the requirements needed to operate.
DOH denied Civil Beat’s request for an interview and did not confirm whether it had designated Cloverleaf as a CAFO, inferring that it had not decided. “An inspection of the facility and its operations are needed before a determination can be made,” DOH said in an email. An official DOH site visit has been slated for next week.
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